Sonicxtacy02

Jukebox Jockey is a touch-friendly media player and karaoke front end.

The Verdict:The Jukebox Jockey software has been a joy to review. Its very feature-rich and some new innovations not yet seen in the car PC arena. The software is as simple or as flexible as you choose for it to be and never gets in a users way thanks to a clever GUI. Any mobile PC user looking for well-supported program to manage most of their media on the go should look first at Jukebox Jockey.

Jukebox Jockey is a windows application built to be a simple yet fully functioning media player. It’s different from the multitude of existing media player software in that Jukebox Jockey is built from the ground up to be touchscreen-friendly. This obviously has plenty of benefits on a small screened car PC, but Jukebox Jockey also shines in a party environment. Most of my review will focus on Jukebox Jockeys aspirations as a simple media car PC front end, but I will say the app is simply the best application out there for controlling music, video, and karaoke playback for a group of people.

A person looking for a simple and powerful media player for their 7-inch touchscreen should seriously consider Jukebox Jockey. While it lacks the expansion that most other commercially available mobile PC front ends offer, it does what it’s meant to do with absolute ease. The entire interface is skinnable. The buttons are large enough to be pressed on your standard car touchscreen and for the most part they are text-labeled when they need to be. This means you know what the button does before you press it. While the application will run at 800x600, the developer is currently working on skinning options for resolutions that low. There is no “home” screen which houses all of the media options, rather a simple “Change Mode” button which brings up a small menu which allows selection.

From there, it’s easy to find the media you’re looking for. The top portion of the application window allows you to select how you wish to find your media. Browse-by-album-art is present, and will perhaps be the preferred method. The ability to sort by decades is a new and welcomed feature when comparing to other vehicle front ends. There is also a pretty handy instant search function which searches for results each time a key on the on-screen QWERTY keyboard is pressed. All media is scanned into Jukebox Jockey via the options button on the top of the application. Scanning media is relatively quick, but it does have to be done each time new music/videos are added.

Playlists are housed on the right side of the application window. Jukebox Jockey has a different take on playlist handling. By default, the playlist shrinks as songs are played. In Jukebox Jockey the playlist is more of a request list, and this makes sense considering the software doubles as DJ software. Overall the music and video players rivals most other media players on the market.

What you won’t find in most media players and especially on car PCs is a karaoke mode. This mode was by far the most fun to use in a party environment, but I did have passengers in the car playing as I drove down the road. Jukebox Jockey is very easy for passengers and newcomers to control. There is even a specific party mode which administrators can enable to lock down settings and controls that secondary users would not need access too.

The Positive:

• Built to be touchscreen friendly
• Built-in media library which organizes/searches media in a multitude of ways
• Fully Skinnable• 2nd Screen support for media information and karaoke lyrics
• Simple installation on any PC with windows XP or newer
• Small footprint and doesn’t use too much memory
• Easy to use for beginners, a huge list of options for experienced users
• Bass audio engine for high audio fidelity
• Actively supported

The Negative:

• Video player did not support h264 encoded videos

• No current skin for 800x480

The Verdict:

The Jukebox Jockey software has been a joy to review. Its very feature-rich and some new innovations not yet seen in the car PC arena. The software is as simple or as flexible as you choose for it to be and never gets in a users way thanks to a clever GUI. Any mobile PC user looking for well-supported program to manage most of their media on the go should look first at Jukebox Jockey.